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Lego and the IP Conundrum
Packetknife writes: "Business 2.0 has an article on Lego and the development and business issues surrounding the Mindstorms product line. The article concentrates on intellectual property issues and the role of hackers in the development of Mindstorms. The hook to the OSS movement is obvious in the article." Interesting piece about Lego trying not to bite the hand that feeds it, even though the temptation is strong.
On the one hand there's a "strong kinship" and on the other there's an assumption that hackers will immediately decide to turn on you by doing something extreme. Which is the feeling that Lego truly has about "hackers" who tinker with their products? Besides, shutting down a website implies a totally different type of hacking from that which involves modifying products. So once again, two different kinds of hacker get equated.
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
LegOS _is_ rather close to LEGO, after all, and it is emphatically in the same market. So, I'd think that a name change on the part of Noga would not be amiss.
Other than that, I hope that LEGO leaves well alone (giving an official 'stamp of approval' to high quality projects are a good idea, though). As the article emphasizes several times, LEGOs business is selling kits, not software. Having a prominent wanring that messing with the OS will void your warranty should be enough.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I don't understand why this should go to court. Someone took his own time and spent it to make Lego's hardware better. If Lego simply bought the modification for x dollars, wouldn't the problem be solved?
Look at game mods, for example. Game companies let people create modifications for their games and then they BUY the best ones, repackage them, test them, and ship them, therefore accepting responsibility for tech support. This would solve Lego's problem of "If it -- or any other third-party OS -- becomes widely used, Lego would have trouble vouching for the reliability of its product and providing tech support."
Okay, next. Lego offered the hackers a job. Why offer them a salary when you can simply pay them so much for the alternative OS and use it as the basis for your next robots, or offer it as a free, supported, "advanced users only" download?
The only problem I see with the above is what happens when the hackers continue to improve the OS. Do you keep paying them, or not? That would be something Lego would have to work out with them. However, I still see no reason for them to drag these people into court. These people believed in something and made it better -- they weren't trying to undercut Lego, and they are not selling alternative hardware (which Lego freely admits is its core business.) So what's the problem here?
The only legitimate argument in the article was that Lego might get a few support calls from users of alternative software. The way to deal with this is the same exact way that Tivo deals with upgrades, AMD deals with overclocking, and Maxtor deals with tinkerers: void the warranty if the user tampers with the equipment and something breaks. Simple.
--sting3r
Lego has always held close the belief that toys should be educational. Shouldn't this be another facet of that same idea? Noga and the people who "hack" mindstorms are simply taking it to a new level. Besides is they can make something works as well or better, why not encourage that level of developement by hiring them on as programmers/consultants for your products. Noga clearly has excellent ideas for mindstorm and with his insight, there may be a whole new area of developement to tap into, something Lego may not have considered.
"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" -- Red Green
Lego has spent many, many years building a reputation associated with their name. And that reputation is well-reserved; truly we can all appreciate how Lego brought MITs research into the hobbiest market. That was a gutsy move on Lego's part, and they should be rewarded for that courage.
Markus Noga is a bright guy, but (as the article states), he crossed the line by naming his product LegOS. He's being a silly ass by claiming he named it after himself, and that the name has nothing to do with "Lego". He's tweaking the nose of the company, even though they provided the basis for his work. There would be no LegOS without Mindstorms...
Lego isn't going after all Mindstorms' hackers, or poeple who've created alternative programming languages. They're protecting their good name, as any of us would do.
And now back to playing with Mindstorms. I'm building a bot with two RCX modules, coordinating them to build a useful exploration rover... this is one damned fine toy, and Lego deserves all the credit in the world for bringing it to us.
All about me
Lego though does have a good point. What stops Mattell from building a simliar toy, and use legOS as their OS? Think of how much development costs could be avoided.
I myself support the hacking, but maybe lego could require anybody that makes an alternative OS, to have a liscence that has a line saying that "This software may ONLY, with no exceptions, be used in LEGO products." And than they go after the people that don't put that in their OS liscence.
It's really cool - that mindstorms thing. I did somethign for a year called "First Lego League" as a sixth grader. We were the beta year, and it was a huge success. (except another group destroyed our robot) Mr. BIGGLESWORTH!!! (our robot name)
Now, I don't believe that open source is always the right tool for the job, but I think it is perfect for this sort of situation.
The standard business model of selling software simply isn't right for Lego. They're basically selling hardware.
Open source is the right business tool for this market. Lego should get together with some of the hackers and release a source code pack for anyone who wants to use it. If it gets modified into something better, all the more profits for Lego.
Let's see open source do what it has always promised to do: make some serious dough.
Once again, a "respectable" firm calls everyone, from the good guys to the bad hackers. So because I like lego mindstorm, I can shut down your website. Right.
Business 2.0 is an american firm, and hence they are trying to invoke the "sue sue sue" response that the country is in right now... I must say I've lost some respect for them now.
I do have one question though - I can understand a trademark infringement case ("LegOs") but intellectual property? That just isn't flying. Do I have to sign a license agreement when I buy mindstorm? Is there a shrinkwrap agreement saying I can't toy with the hardware? As far as I'm concerned (granted, IANAL), Noga is doing nothing wrong, and Business 2.0 is trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Paul Keegan, go do some more research.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
This artical is weird. Asside from the name, I can't see what lego could possibly sue for. Since when has it been against the law to develop and market software for Computers you buy?
I mean, how could it possibly be against the law to write software for a computer you own!?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The Lego Reverse Engineering Site.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The DMCA (and other stupid laws) come from the Government trying to overprotect its corporations.
My niece and nephew's dog is named Lego, but nobody has tried (to the best of my knowledge) to snap a Lego block on him, only to have this not work, then call customer support at Lego to complain and request a new set of Lego blocks.
However, imagine this scenerio... a parent and child download LegOS because it has "Lego" in it, so it must be a Lego product. Okay, there's warnings all over the place about LegOS not being affiliated or supported by Lego or whatever, but we know how useful this is. So the child now has a LegOS powered Mindstorm and it does something Lego-unapproved, dangerous, pornographic, becomes inoperable, or whatever (pick a Simpsons episode like the one where the talking Krusty doll tries to kill Homer or the Funby toy that destroys products made by its manufacture's competitors). Now Lego has a big problem on their hands.
Maybe it's not just popularity, but popularity combined with a functionality reasonably relevant to the product.
Along with your dog named LegOS issue, I wonder if the reason the dog becomes popular is part of the equation. If you name the dog LegOS and it becomes popular because it saves a drowning family, there's probably no lawsuit issue. But if LegOS mauls someone... hmmmm. I wonder if something like this has ever happened, like someone has named a racehorse after a product, and the horse is a pathetic on the racetrack, so the company tells the owner to change the horse's name or risk a lawsuit?
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
Lego is a toy where kids get to explore their creativity, not be dictated to about their imagination. The source code should be open and done under a license that both helps encourage the exploration of creativity while protecting the company interest in not having it end up being something they regret, something being used competitively against them.
Lego sells the hardware, the physical stuff, the imagination is what their customers supply.
There is very little imagination in a customer naming his Lego robotics OS LegOS. He should better express good will here, then by way of imitation.
Perhaps the computer industry might take a hint from this "hardware" toy company. In realizing a whole hell of a lot more would get done that benefits everyone, by avoiding greed of imagination and imagination potential dictation.
"...it sold a staggering 100,000 kits, far beyond the 12,000 units the company had projected. To Lego's surprise, some 70 percent of Mindstorms customers in the heady early months following its launch were old enough to vote..."
What would you do if your a product found and unexpected successful market? I think Lego knows they've stumbled into an opportunity, but they're unsure of how to execute.
Instead of focusing on "Should Lego sue?", focus on "How should Lego leverage this opportunity?" The simple answer IMHO: co-opt the individual efforts; make an "adult" product version or addons. Make Mindstorm *real* plug-and-play software/hardware.
This is the first article I've read in Buisness 2.0. I hope they're not all this bad.
..."
Lego isn't walking some 'fine line' between two extremes. They know full well that hackers messing about with Mindstorms will help their sales and market penetration, and are hence doing nothing about it. End of story. The trademark infringement issue is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SUBJECT, and there's no reason for tying the two together, except for the sake of sensationalism.
Then there's the writing style.
"Using it, a propellerhead of moderate nerdulence could build a tic-tac-toe-playing robot
Ye Gods, I'd be embarassed to sign my name to such an ugly phrase. There are others just as bad.
So a badly written article that tries to create a tempest in a teapot. Whee! I did notice that most of the articles in the magazine are titled: ": To sue or not to sue." All of these things make very unanxious to read any more B2.0 articles.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Yep, they certainly do have a point. While I think that hacking their hardware/software is great (and I bet LEGO thinks so too), there's no point in poking their lawyers with a stick. IP and trademark are protect it or lose it type stuff.
There are any number of ex-trademarks that were lost because the company didn't defend the trademark (or botched it): Aspirin, linolium, yo-yo, thermos, cellophane, milk of magnesia, lanolin, celluloid, dry ice, escalator, shredded wheat and zipper. (Source: "Made in America", Bill Bryson) While these names are now public domain, some company once created and owned them. Those companies lost big when their trademark became generic.
I'm sure that the LEGO people would rather shoot their own feet off than have to sue someone, but you have to defend a trademark or lose it! They can't afford to lose the LEGO trademark, otherwise anyone can call their product LEGO.
I hope Noga will understand (NogaOS?), and LEGO could give him a few bulk cases of LEGO. And then everyone could go have a cream soda with ice cream float.
LEGO are White Hat Good Guys, Noga is White Hat Good Guy. This problem is stupid, and is just attracting the suits and lawyers.
Now if only LEGO would make steel blocks so that I could build the perfect BattleBot!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
If it -- or any other third-party OS -- becomes widely used, Lego would have trouble vouching for the reliability of its product and providing tech support. More worrisome, another company could use Noga's LegOS to create a competing product.
One of the things that saddens me is the way Lego has gone into reverse with their robotics system toy line. The orriginal Mindstorm kit had supperior hardware to the present kits. The orriginal RCX 1.0 brick had a 9V power jack which allowed you to power the brick w/o batteries. Starting with 1.5 and now 2.0 the bricks have no external power source.
The newer kits comming out of Lego are really dissapointing. The Scout, toughted as the future of RCX on some Lego pages, has only two inputs, two outputs and the light input is hardwired into the brick so it is less usefull. The Scout is a representation of the first labotomized RCX.
The newer micro-Scout is less usefull as it has one output and input and they are both internalized. It is also not programmable the way the Scout and RCX are.
If someone competes with Lego maybe we will see an improvement in the technology rather than the cheapening we have been witnessing. I would love to purchase an RCX brick with 6 or more inputs and outputs. Especially if it can run LegOS.
It is a shame that the Handy Boards are so darn expensive.
How is it doing that? As the article notes, users of LegOS represent a miniscule fraction of Mindstorm users. There is no mention of any attempt by LEGO to discourage any 'hacking' that has been done, only the very legitimate issue of trademark dilution. Quite frankly, the matter should be entirely resolvable by the first step LEGO is planning: the friendly letter/phone call. If it is not, it will only be due to the ego of yet another pain-in-the-ass hacker, biting the hand that feeds him -- not the other way around.
If I buy a ford truck, and jack it up, put a light bar on it, custom paint it, tweek the motor and do all sorts of wacky stuff Ford doesn't sue me for violating their "IP". They don't ask me to take the name off of it. In fact, if I make kits to modify the vehicles they are happy as a clam, as it sells more cars.
If I buy a house, add an addition, change the colors on the walls, swap out the heater, and then tell people it's a "Toll Bothers Hose" they don't sue me for violating their IP. I can rip the walls down and 'reverse engineer' it all I want.
Now, if I buy a mindstorms kit and write better software for it, that's grounds to sue?
This is all way out of hand.